The Sunrise Afterwards
by May000
Summary: Halle visits the Yagami women a year after Kira is killed. Offering her support, she builds up a connection with the still recovering Sayu.


A/N: Written a few months ago for a prompt on Tumblr. The prompt was inspired by a discussion on the types of homosexual relationships that there are in Death Note fandom, and this particular pairing and setting was referenced. I'd never considered it, beforehand, but it was interesting to explore, and the fic would have been longer if the word limit given wasn't 2000 words. I also like writing about what Kira did to the world and how it was, afterwards.

The Sunrise Afterwards

It was a year since Kira's downfall. The world was still picking itself up after falling to pieces, as things tend to do when they are pressed together too tightly and then released. Halle's life was still spent putting everything back as it had been. Not just the big things, but the little things, too. The small cracks created by Kira's impact on the world.

Light Yagami's mother, Sachiko Yagami. A small, apple-faced woman in her late forties, perhaps early fifties. Halle had never seen reason to really check. She was saggy-shouldered and pale when Halle had first visited. As far as she knew, she'd lost her husband and son in the battle against Kira. She was right about that, Halle had to admit. Halle Bullock was no psychiatrist, and she was no good Samaritan, either, but this was Kira's family. The innocence that he'd maybe tried to protect in the beginning but then destroyed when he'd warped into the laughing, screaming creature that had been put down that day in the yellow box.

The family now consisted of Sachiko and her daughter, Sayu, who was still frail and a little distant from her kidnapping at Mello's hands. Halle couldn't help the constriction in her chest when she thought of him, although she always pushed him from her mind, immediately.

Halle told them it was a courtesy call. It was, really. It always would be, for as long as Halle could avoid thinking about her own brother dead in his apartment, or the other SPK members strewn across the floor of the headquarters, Near going on to give his monotonous orders as he played with his dice tower. Some urge to knit the breaks Kira created back together again. That had been her goal in working with Near to begin with, after all. The SPK wasn't a pleasant time, she supposed, but it had been going somewhere. Perhaps helping to take down Kira would be the biggest thing she'd ever do, no matter what she did.

And that lady with her family sliced down the middle and her daughter caught horrendously in the way. The problem had been removed but things still lay open. Halle had clasped a hot drink in her hands as she had listened to Sachiko cry and watched Sayu stare at the opposite wall, her dark eyes glassy. Halle had listened without interjecting and thought of her own losses once again in commiseration. Sayu was clearly up and walking around by that point, although she seemed to still when her mother dissolved into tears. Halle, spent long ago, let Sachiko run her course. The woman wasn't even looking for a shoulder, just an excuse to let the dam fall. She'd been embarrassed, afterwards.

Halle would need to leave Japan, eventually, although some bureaucratic snarls had kept her there for a while. So it made sense to continue visiting the Yagami family in the meantime. After that initial visit, Sachiko kept herself together, and the three women would sit in the living room and drink tea and Halle would tell them how the world was returning to the way it was. Sachiko would nod, and tell Halle that it was going the way that her husband and son had wanted. Only the cruellest of people would let the woman know. Sometimes, Sachiko's voice would trip and Halle would grip her mug just a little.

After a while, Sayu started talking. Never too animated, though; if she'd been a character in the sort of novel that Halle never read, she'd be described as pale, fragile and doll-like and Halle supposed that she was all of those things but possibly not quite in the way that romance novelists ever mean. Her youth stopped her from looking quite as haggard as her mother sometimes did, but there were bags beneath her eyes and she was skeletal, almost. Although, really, she had to have been fairly petite to begin with and Halle, despite herself, felt her insides quail at something so delicate being crushed in such a way. And through the actions of her own brother, nonetheless.

She talked about Halle, at first, and Halle would answer her questions, mindfully. And then she would talk about 'before' and her brother and how Halle was doing what he wanted to do. Sachiko's face fell inwards just a little and it was then that she seemed most drawn.

Sachiko worked, now. Although Soichiro Yagami had handled his finances well enough to keep the two women secure for a while, it was soon needed for Sachiko to work to keep herself and Sayu comfortable. While Sayu was recovering, well, she still was in no position to work, herself.

Halle still visited; sometimes it almost seemed like Sachiko counted on her to be an unofficial babysitter for Sayu. They'd sit and watch television or in Sayu's bedroom. Sayu was becoming all the more talkative and Halle figured that her natural personality was creeping back in, and perhaps would fill those large, dark eyes.

"I still don't know, you know?" said Sayu, one day, as they sat and talked, the television blaring in the background. Halle looked at her, quizzically and said nothing. "I don't know if I was ever right about him."

Halle felt pensive, but she was quiet as she let Sayu continue.

"I don't know…he was. It was just." Sayu stopped.

The girl's fingers traced the pattern on the carpet. "The worst thing is….is that I'll probably never know." Her voice cracked towards the end and she was still.

Halle reached out and patted her on the shoulder. It was painfully thin and bony, and Halle expected Sayu to pull away, timidly. But she stayed where she was and stared at the floor.

When she looked up, her eyes were moist with tears. She moved forward, and placed her head on Halle's shoulder. Her hair pressed against Halle's cheek and it was a little stringy and greasy from perhaps a couple of days of not washing. Halle embraced her, awkwardly.

"When….a few years ago," began Sayu. "Someone died. On the task-force. Killed by Kira, I imagine. Obviously, we couldn't know who he was but… Dad…" her voice hitched. "Dad was clearly upset by it. But, Light…he had been right there, but he just went on to talk about moving in with Misa and seemed…happy about that, and I thought it was sweet. That he loved her so much. Then I realised that he didn't seem upset at all."

She shook in Halle's arms, and felt brittle.

"It's not much," she continued, her voice slurring with tears. "But I realised how little I knew."

Halle was quiet, and dwelled on what Sayu had said, and the closeness. She hadn't been close to anyone in a while, not since…well, it wouldn't do to think of him with Sayu against her. The girl was a small spot of warmth, and Halle felt a little guilty for that. But, she rationed, who was there to hug Sayu, usually? The Yagami women needed to stay strong, and even in her recovering state, Sayu seemed to realise that her mother would be too frail under the weight of emotion. If they leaned on each other, then they would collapse on each other. Halle would stop them, at least until she went back to America.

And it was nice to have Sayu against her shoulder like that. Halle couldn't get rid of that. They sat for a while, until Sachiko came home. Halle didn't feel the need to tell Sayu anything she already knew, and couldn't tell her anything she didn't. She didn't feel as if Sayu would get much from knowing that her kidnapper was dead.

Later, Halle knew that she wouldn't have long left in Japan, and she took Sayu out for lunch, one morning. It was a nice day, and the air was clear. Tokyo was moving into its working day, the city had slipped back into motion quickly after Kira's death. Halle knew that Sayu didn't go out, often, and she was wrapped in a scarf and a coat. Lunch was light and quick, and Sayu picked at her food as she talked.

"They don't visit me, anymore," she said. "My friends from college, they don't visit me."

"Life is still difficult for everyone," replied Halle. Sayu's face fell, but there hadn't been much that Halle could have said. It was a common thing, for friends to find it too awkward for one of their number to lose all of her vivacity so hard. And Halle could believe that Sayu had been vivacious.

"Thanks, you know," Sayu went on. "Not just for me, but mum, too. She's coping. Coping well, even. She has to. I've been a huge burden, so thank-you for taking some of the weight off of her shoulders."

How distinctly Japanese, thought Halle, dryly. But she smiled. Walking back, Sayu seemed to take a bigger interest in the world, this time. Halle could imagine her bright little mind starting to tick into action, again. Her brother might have been the brilliant one, but Sayu was clearly intelligent of her own accord. And beautiful, too, when she was healthy, even though she had the rotten luck of her brother overshadowing her, there, too. But there was exceptional loveliness in seeing Sayu mend as the world was mending. Halle would go back to America in the knowledge that she wasn't leaving quite so many open holes behind.

Things moved to another stage not long after. Sayu pressed up against her and kissed her, instead of laying her head on her shoulder. Halle didn't want to push her off. It was too warm and sweet and welcome for the idea that she might be taking advantage to have much weight. But Sayu was twenty-one and they were friends, and Halle wasn't there in a professional capacity. So she gave in.

The intimacy was more welcome than Halle had imagined. And, frail though she was, Sayu was still a woman. Perhaps, in a way, this was the closest that Sayu could get, now, to her brother, to the situation that she'd been kept on the fringe of. That had hurt her, anyway. Halle felt like she knew more than she really wanted to in the situation, and she was thankful that Sayu wouldn't ever know what Light had looked like in his last moments.

They continued their affair, and saw no reason to inform Sachiko just yet. The woman invited Halle round for lunch on the basis of friendship. It was the three of them and a man that had worked with Soichiro Yagami. His name was Matsuda, and Halle had met him at the Yellow Box. He'd been the one to shoot Light, in the end.

He was a young man, still, not much older than Halle, but the experience had made creases in his forehead and bags under his eyes. He'd seen the Kira case from beginning to end, had worked with Light and had probably even liked him.

As they began to eat, it occurred to Halle that, in many ways, she herself was on the fringe and there were things she wouldn't ever know, even as Yagami's last flailing moments sat in her mind.


End file.
